


Decisions, Decisions

by Haospart



Series: Saving the world sucks sometimes, but at least there's family [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Here Lies the Abyss Spoilers, Red Lyrium, Rito goes Off right back, Rito's experiencing some emotional distress at least, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Doubt, Solas gets Angery and learns a bit more about the local Rogue, Solas goes Off about Rito's decision about the Wardens, The Fade, Yelling, panic attack maybe?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26924803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haospart/pseuds/Haospart
Summary: Rito kept the Wardens, and Solas isn't thrilled.  But Solas isn't the one in charge, and he wasn't the one in the Fade or at Adamant.  It wasn't his decision to make.
Relationships: Solas & Male Trevelyan (Dragon Age)
Series: Saving the world sucks sometimes, but at least there's family [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885636
Kudos: 4





	Decisions, Decisions

**Author's Note:**

> Gonna be real, I have no idea if the place is actually called Adamant bc I play in french so uh, that's probably a good preface for all my dragon age fics lol.
> 
> Also I'm incapable of uploading *shit* in a reasonable order so while the series will be in chronological order, some of these fics will be popping up in the middle of it after ones at the end of the line have already been posted for Forever.

“What were you  _ thinking _ ?” Solas was yelling, raging about his weird room at the base of the tower, and he zeroed in on Rito the moment the young man stepped through the threshold, “What was going on in your  _ head _ when you told the wardens that, to make up for their dangerous,  _ insane _ actions, they should work with the Inquisition? What in the  _ world _ made you think that they deserved that chance, after everything they’ve done?”

Rito’s shoulders rose steadily higher, and his head ducked into his scarf a bit, obscuring his frown. He crossed his arms carefully and shuffled in place as Solas turned on his heel to spit his outrage at the wall with his vile tone. He didn’t dare speak while Solas was like this. He’d never seen the elf so thoroughly  _ incensed _ before, and wasn’t sure an interruption would be welcome. 

It took another few minutes of ranting at the wall for Solas to whirl on Rito again, “ _ What  _ were you  _ thinking _ -”

“Maybe I wasn’t thinking!” Rito bit back, voice higher than he’d anticipated, with an edge of hysteria in it that hadn’t ever really gone away since he stepped out of the Fade for the second time. “Maybe I was disoriented and terrified from coming face to face with a  _ literal _ nightmare and being swarmed with everything I’ve ever been afraid of! Maybe- just maybe, I was  _ busy _ trying not to  _ cry _ from when a spider bigger than  _ Skyhold _ dropped itself down in front of me and tried to kill me!”

Solas blinked, mouth hanging open, but Rito wasn’t finished.

“Everyone’s always depending on me to make the big decisions, where to go, who to follow, who to recruit, who to save, who do I sacrifice? Everywhere I go, nobility hounding me, people looking to  _ me _ , for saving the world. What do I know about saving the  _ world _ ? I’m a  _ thief _ ! I ran away from home to become an  _ outlaw _ and take one more rung out of the succession line for the Trevelyan family, and it all just  _ found me anyways _ . Good job, Rito, you wanted to be rid of all that ruling and politics nonsense? Well guess what, you walked in on  _ Corypheus _ trying to sacrifice the Divine and now he’s trying to kill you just like  _ literally _ everything else in this world! Got a nice, fancy title to mask the fact that I’m not even remotely equipped to handle any of this, but you all seem to trust me anyways, Maker knows why any of you decided to do  _ that _ .” 

“It’s a bad call, Stroud learned that the hard way when he fucking  _ died _ in the Fade just keeping the Nightmare’s  _ attention _ , because I told him to, and the only thing I could think to do after that when the  _ actual fucking wardens _ asked  _ me _ what to do, was that the Inquisition is always short of hands because we’re trying to save the world from a  _ giant nightmare man trying to walk in the land of the giant fuck-off spiders _ like a  _ lunatic _ !” Rito huffed. His face was red, and his eyes wide and wild. He’d said some of these things before, to Cole, and some of the smaller doubts had been shared with Solas himself, but never had he poured his heart out like this.

“I stepped out of a nightmare,  _ again _ , where everything made my head hurt and being scared fed the enemy. I stepped out of  _ hell _ again, and the first thing people want to do is make me decide the fate of their  _ people _ . How are you even supposed to think after finding out your memories were stolen by a demon, after getting them back, which fucking  _ hurts _ by the way, and getting attacked by the one thing that scares you more than your own failure? I’m still in the  _ bandages _ from that hellscape and I don’t even get to  _ sleep _ before people are jumping down my throat,” Rito, then, seemed to run out of steam. His breath came in harsh, sharp pants, and his arm had slowly migrated to cradle his side.

He was defensive, clearly, with the injured side, still unhealed from getting clawed by a minor demon, angled away from Solas, as if the elf would take the weakness as an opportunity to hurt him more. 

“I’m going to go get these changed. Then I’m going to sleep,” Rito bit out, frowning. Then he turned, never exposing the injuries for even a moment, keeping them as far from Solas as he could manage.

It gave the elf pause. Well, all of it did. The rant had been... interesting. A peek into the thoughts of the reserved, nervous archer. A  _ real _ look into his head, and what doubts plagued him there. Cole had said once, when he’d interrupted whatever ‘help’ that the spirit had attempted in the attic of the tavern, that Rito didn’t trust himself, that he didn’t want to be trusted.

No wonder, if this was how he felt.

The disgraced son of a powerful family, who ran away but could never really escape the life he was born into, he was a soft presence, kept as self-contained as he could. He wasn’t shy about how much he did  _ not _ want to be the one in the spotlight, but he’d never quite come out and said so plainly  _ why _ .

He was overwhelmed, young and unequipped, even if his decisions had had an overall positive outcome. Young, untrained, overwhelmed…

_ Doing his best _ .

\----------------------------------------------

Up in his room, Rito changed his bandages alone. He’d locked the door and stripped out of his gear to his undershirt, then pulled that off too. The thick, heavy leather gloves that he wore daily lay discarded on the edge of the fireplace.

He sat on the floor with a bowl of lukewarm water and a cloth, cross-legged in front of his mirror and set to work. He’d done this more than once, and though his nose had never quite recovered from his first clumsy forays into thievery and medicine, he’d gotten better at fixing himself in the years that had passed.

He pushed a little harder than maybe he needed to in cleaning himself up, but frustration made him less-than-delicate with himself, and he really had one arm to work with. He wrapped up his left arm, from slightly above the elbow and down, hiding the pulsing, bloody glow of lyrium-infected flesh under layers of thick fabric. The hand wasn’t particularly dexterous at this point, no point in keeping it uncovered for discovery if anyone decided to break down his door. Not that anyone  _ would _ but, with enough rogues in one place and magic friends, one could never be too careful.

His other hand was fine though save the very tips of his index and middle fingers, and it was his left side that had been torn up anyways. His left hand wouldn’t have been able to reach.

Rito sighed, then put the pink-stained cloth into the water in front of him.

He liked Solas, he  _ really _ did, but the man never seemed to understand exactly the position Rito was in. He put his head in his hands, scrubbing his eyes furiously. Solas  _ trusted _ Rito, to do the right thing, and when that misplaced trust turned out to be something he didn’t like then he got angry.

“Not my fault he’s put his faith in the wrong person,” he muttered to himself, bitter, “If you turn me into the decision-maker, you get to live with the consequences.”


End file.
